some people including myself suggested using shortcuts to make the cancel easier, but there were many others who strongly opposed the use of shortcuts. My question is this:

If shortcuts make the game easier for some people why the hate?

I’ve never seriously played any other street fighter besides 4 but to my understanding the shoryuken shortcuts existed in 3rd strike as well. Do they get as much hate from the 3rd strike community? Also why do other tactics that make certain situations easier (kara-canceling, plinking, buffering) not seem to get as much hate. In the HDR forums I read about 2-in-1ing Ryu’s c.mk and super and it required using the motion d,df,f,d+mk,df,f+p because it is impossible to do it the traditional way. Nobody was saying that it shouldn’t be done that way. What gives?

I guess that was more than one question, but thanks in advance to anyone who wants to explain this to me. :wgrin:

Well, in my opinion, shortcuts do not help you in any other games, aside from the ones used in that game.
ALTHOUGH when it comes to IV, I do wish that the inputs would be a little less forgiving, that’s me though.

Because you’re forgetting who you’re talking to and dealing with…a very possesive and protective subculture whiich prides itself on aquiring and sharpening their skills through hours and hours of practice. Folks spend a lot of time getting better and then all of a sudden, easy inputs come along and let anybody front online and fool themselves in casuals.

Traditional inputs are healthy homecooked meals and easy inputs are fast food. Folks who learned the traditional ways have better dexterity and concept of the engine due to all the work they put in, whereas easy inputs may make you feel good at that point in time, but come over to HDR and you will get wrecked.

Because you’re forgetting who you’re talking to and dealing with…a very possesive and protective subculture whiich prides itself on aquiring and sharpening their skills through hours and hours of practice. Folks spend a lot of time getting better and then all of a sudden, easy inputs come along and let anybody front online and fool themselves in casuals.

Traditional inputs are healthy homecooked meals and easy inputs are fast food. Folks who learned the traditional ways have better dexterity and concept of the engine due to all the work they put in, whereas easy inputs may make you feel good at that point in time, but come over to HDR and you will get wrecked.

I think that’s a generalization. It’s more of “amount of time put into the game.” Kind of thing. Your post makes it sound like learning to do a Dragon Punch in HDR will teach you fundamentals. It doesn’t, though you have tos pend more time learning it in HDR, and thus, you spend more time overall with the game.

the shorts cuts throw some people off when trying to attempt ultras and it allows people to mash out of block strings stuff like that.

I think that’s a generalization. It’s more of “amount of time put into the game.” Kind of thing. Your post makes it sound like learning to do a Dragon Punch in HDR will teach you fundamentals. It doesn’t, though you have tos pend more time learning it in HDR, and thus, you spend more time overall with the game.

Just saying.

Execution is part of the fundamentals so learning the dragon punch motion especially for dragon punch commands is essential

shortcuts let your Run before you walk thats the negative parts about it and w/that thehate.

Because you’re on srk, where people are pretentious about fighting games.

The only argument is if you go on to other fighting games, their inputs are unlikely to mirror sf4’s shortcuts so the learning curve in other games would be faster if you didn’t use shortcuts in sf4. However in sf4 you don’t exclusively learn shortcuts as a method to perform moves, shortcuts help in certain situations/combos, but in others you’re best using the traditional input, so by playing sf4 you are still learning the traditional methods.

Honestly to me telling people not to use sf4’s shortcuts “because it will be less helpful when you play other fighting games” is like telling people not to play gen “because his move set is less common in other fighting games”.

Because you’re forgetting who you’re talking to and dealing with…a very possesive and protective subculture whiich prides itself on aquiring and sharpening their skills through hours and hours of practice. Folks spend a lot of time getting better and then all of a sudden, easy inputs come along and let anybody front online and fool themselves in casuals.

I completely agree with this. It’s exactly why I hate the shortcuts so much.

I suppose this is one of the few topics that I don’t go compleltely “against the grain” on; I dislike shortcuts as well.

To me though, it’s kind of a bittersweet thing. Nobody with a sound business sense can deny how good the choice to make a more accessible Street Fighter was for the fighting game community. At the same time, though, because it’s an easier game to get into, it’s a little annoying because of all of the time that I’d spent in previous game perfecting then-difficult motions.

It’s really going to boil down to the type of person that you are…: do you prefer that something that you enjoy, as a whole, is progressing? Or do you complain that you, as a person, now have less that makes you stand out, or rather have to work harder in order to be exceptional?

At the end of the day, you won’t see me bitching about shortcuts, because I feel that overall it did more good than harm for the FG following. Plus, I’m not adverse to working hard for the things that I want, and desire to be good at fighting games is no exception.

I dislike shortcuts cause they change what a DP is. The forward in a DP motion is there 'cause your suppose to risk a non-blocking standing position, during the input. With shortcuts, you can now do DP motions without ever standing up. But hey, it’s in the game; so use it or get it used on you.

But in that thread, I didn’t sense much hate. Not that shortcut, or not, matters in that instances, since the motion is masked by the attack.

Thanks for all of the replys folks. It seems that some of you think the problem with shortcuts is because it makes it easier for new people and all the old school ST and alpha players didn’t have that kind of a head start, they had to spend hours in training working hard to get better. Makes sense to me and I probably find myself in agreement. I don’t agree with the whole argument that it will make you suck at other fighters. IMO it’s kind of a moot point because street fighter shouldn’t be training for another game. If I want to play Tekken for example then I have to learn the moves for that engine, if there is a SRK motion and I already know it from playing SF then great but I wouldn’t go in hoping for that.

4r5:

…
But in that thread, I didn’t sense much hate. Not that shortcut, or not, matters in that instances, since the motion is masked by the attack.

I didn’t mean to insinuate that there was “hate” in that particular thread (probably shouldn’t have used “hate” at all but whatever) it was just the most recent example I could remember off hand.

I like being able to do half circle backwards starting at downforward, but I hate that when I try to do a double quarter circle forward I get a srk motion. But then my execution with non-charge character blows ass.

Why the shortcut hate? My guess is that shortcuts allow many players to fool themselves into thinking that becoming better at the game on a higher level will require very little effort. So, you’ll see new players who lack the drive to practice and improve their fundamental skill level act like older, more driven players aren’t doing anything special/worth noting because they can do those “complex” move sequences as well (e.g. shoryu -> ultra without ever putting in the practice to figure out how to set-up that situation).

That’s another good view (pun possibly intended). People seeing that they are now able to do awesome-looking combos and links in SF4 may think less of what they are watching when they see the older games being played, because they “can do it in SF4 and it’s really easy”.

If in your game shorcuts make you a more efficient player, then by all means use them and ignore what other people say. If you like them, and you can use them properly, and if it helps your game out, then USE THEM.

Shortcuts are shortcuts. You can get to destination A in 10 minutes using route X, but you can also get to destination A by using shortcut Z in 7 minutes. In the end you are always ending up at the same location.

Only shortcuts I use are the ones for grappler characters, other than that I don’t use them. I’ve been playing fighting games ever since I could remember. But hey, if it helps you out, go for it. Just remember if you sync up the shortcuts in one game, they may not work on other games. So if you’re playing lots of different fighting games then it’s probably a bad habit, but if you focus on just a couple then you shouldn’t have any problems.

Okay yeah, execution is fundamentals, I just meant to say that practicing DP in HDR and ST doesn’t necessarily make you a good player, either. There’s a correlation between good players and executing good DP motions, but doing a dp in super turbo isn’t a direct cause of being good. You can get DP out every time in HDR/ST and still not be very good, you gotta know application too, etc.

Well, it also changes the ebb and flow of the game. Although easier inputs modify things across the board I’ll just use the Dragon Punch as an example since it seems to be the main area of contention.

Because it’s so easy to mash out a DP you’re essentially making things that used to be “clutch” easier, especially in terms of pressuring an opponent with a block string or a jump in.
Block strings are a vital tool for every character in SF. The block string is a means of pressuring your opponent with various moves, if they flinch they’ll get caught with something (or atleast that’s the hope). Characters with DPs have an extra option to get out. In the older games, it was a little more difficult to DP and you had to be more precise. You had to be very confident with when you were going to DP, in other words, you had to pick your spots concerning when the best time was to dp. Now because of shortcuts, you can sort of mash it out. Why guess DPing on one part of the blockstring when you can just mash btw and every gap and pray that it will hit, right?

And it’s not just blockstrings, jumping in is less effective because of the ease of doing a DP. Doing well under pressure is just as important as predicting your opponents moves. In the other SFs, it was a little less risky to jump if you could truly scare your opponent and pressure them effectively with jumps. A good example of this would be watching a blanka player ike Komoda play Super Turbo. ([media=youtube]V4oOkxnKatg&feature=related[/media])
Watch how he uses normals to pressure Ryu in the corner and how he jumps in with Jab. How many DP anti airs do you see? Only one, at the end when Komoda was totally down on life. You’ll see the Ryu player opt for stand fierce at one point. Even though it traded, it was easier to do. Better to trade than to eat a jump roundhouse by Blanka, by trying to DP. Of course, this can also be attributed to Super Turbo being a fair amount faster than SF4, but I know when I’m playing ST that DP has to be precise and you have to be confident about it or else you’re going to put yourself in a bad position.

Of course, SF4 is SF4 and you have to look passed the easier inputs if you’re going to excel at it. It’s a matter of preference and every SF is different. Just my 2 cents.

I don’t like shortcuts because they allow people to mash out DP’s during combos and blockstrings online (If you get hit by a mashed out reversal DP offline you don’t really have an excuse though).
Don’t like them because they mess up my execution in other games, but I do agree with HawkinsT

HawkinsT:

Honestly to me telling people not to use sf4’s shortcuts “because it will be less helpful when you play other fighting games” is like telling people not to play gen “because his move set is less common in other fighting games”.

Another reason I don’t like them is because when I use Seth, the game interprets one move as another, for example backwards teleport will come out as EX tandem engine. This doesn’t happen to me that much anymore but it still happens.

However, I do use the shortcuts for certain combos and as a whole they’re not so bad. Look how many people got into fighting games when SF4 came out. If SF4 had a really high execution barrier alot of the players that stuck around might not have and the community would have suffered. I’ve been playing SF since WW and HF on the SNES but I was never really good on it, I never took it seriously. SF4 and HDR pretty much got me into playing fighting games at a semi-serious level, I’m not really that good of a player or anything but what I mean is they made me want to explore higher level tactics instead of just mashing out moves and learning flashy combos to impress people.

TL;DR

The shortcuts can be bad in some areas… mashing out DP’s, messes up your execution in other games and sometimes mistakes one motion for another because of the leniency.

But I think they’re good on the whole… They make some BnB combos easier to execute and I think they play a part in why SF4 was so succesful and why alot of newer players stuck around instead of going back to whatever games they was playing before.